New free 3D software from Autodesk

[BPL]

Has anyone modeled anything complicated and curvy in 123D yet?

The sample models all look either simple extrusions or "freeform".

[kdhorton]

DraftSight is a free AutoCAD 2011 released by Solidwork's devs to give the competition's program away for free. Great move; I wonder if AutoCAD countered with this.

[CmbtntDzgnr]

www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/services/
and

www.3ds.com/

produce:

"The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept
cookies."

[DCockey]

I downloaded and installed DraftSight this morningusing IE9. No problems.
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/overview/
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsig...ad-draftsight/

[Nick.K]

I downloaded 123D yesterday, true the interface is quite different but once you find your way around it it is obvious that it's much more powerful than sketchup.
Can anyone recommend a tuition link for it?
I've been looking at 123D catch, though I haven't tried it yet. Has any one tried modelling a boat hull using this?
Nick.

[nautique210]

Can't be a striped down version of alias, even the base version of that is about a simple as you would want it. It's like when Autodesk added NURBS to AutoCAD, useless.

I'll never use 123D, but i'm sure for a 3D novice, they could hack out some shapes. Most likely a polygon modeler (like Maya/3DS) dumbed down big time. These types of apps do have a place, but accuracy is not a strength.

Alias is an incredible design/engineering tool and it's price tag shows, you get what you pay for.

[DCockey]

Originally Posted by nautique210

......
Alias is an incredible design/engineering tool and it's price tag shows, you get what you pay for.

To a certain extent. Rhino is about one-quarter the price of Alias Design. I'm pretty familar with Rhino and recently acquired Alias Design. Based on an initial look at Alias, Rhino and Alias are very comparable and each has a few features that the other one lacks. I suspect most perceived differences in capabilities are more due to an individual's differences in familiarity with the two programs rather than fundamental differences.

[DCockey]

From what I've seen of 123D it's not comparable to either Alias or Rhino. It appears to be more aimed at Sketch-Up.

[nautique210]

I agree alias is overpriced, like most autodesk products. BUT, i think anybody using it over rhino will more than likely be creating higher quality surfaces.

What version of alias did you 'aquire'?

My rhino use is limited, does it have explicit control over the surface degree/span? Of course fundamentally they are the same, but i found it did some things so retarded i have never looked back (may have been operator error!)

[DCockey]

I don't know of any reason why Rhino can not produce surfaces of equal quality to those from Alias. There is explicit control in Rhino of the the degree of curves and surfaces from degree 1 to 11. (My understanding is that Alias Design is limited to degree 3 and higher degree curves and surfaces are only available in the much more expensive Alias Surface and Alias Automotive.) There is control in Rhino of the number of spans, and the placement of knots and control points. However if you go looking for "span" in Rhino you probably won't find it. The terminology is different than what Alias uses.

It takes a while to learn the capabilities of Rhino as is true for any sophisticated software. I haven't spent much time with Alias but enough to know that to use it as effectively as I can use Rhino I would need to spend considerable time "learning" Alias. I expect the same is true for someone going from Alias to Rhino. The interfaces and operation sequences appear to have significant differences.

I have Alias Design 2012. By the way, no need for quotes around acquire. It was acquired legitimately from AutoDesk and has been registered with AutoDesk.

[Pat Ross]

You guys seem to be talking Greek to me, so it sounds like you know what you are talking about.

I am designing a pilothouse enclosure for my center-cockpit sailboat. In this thread there is a discussion of Sketch-Up and another free software design program. I am wondering which is best for my needs to learn, since I only one to learn the use of one of them.

Ideally to me, I would like to upload a photo of my boat and then ad graphics to discover the design of the PH that most appealed and was most useful. At the same time I would want to be capturing the design measurements, angles, slopes, etc... 3D graphics would be the most useful, I would think, but this is new to me.

I would appreciate any guidance.

Pat

[DCockey]

Originally Posted by Pat Ross

You guys seem to be talking Greek to me, so it sounds like you know what you are talking about.

I am designing a pilothouse enclosure for my center-cockpit sailboat. In this thread there is a discussion of Sketch-Up and another free software design program. I am wondering which is best for my needs to learn, since I only one to learn the use of one of them.

Sketch-Up is very popular with woodworkers building furniture and I know a number of folks who are satisfied users. However the free version has very limited abilities to model arbitrially curved surfaces.

123D has some capability for curved surfaces but it's not close to software such as FreeShip or Rhino.

DraftSight is 2D only, but the reports I've heard is it's a good 2D tool.

Ideally to me, I would like to upload a photo of my boat and then ad graphics to discover the design of the PH that most appealed and was most useful.

That's typically done with software which facilitates "drawing" on digital images. Your computer may have come with something loaded which is suitable.

Or you could print large versions of the photos and drawing directly on the paper copies.

At the same time I would want to be capturing the design measurements, angles, slopes, etc... 3D graphics would be the most useful, I would think, but this is new to me.

I would appreciate any guidance.

Pat

Extracting measurements from photos and generating a 3D model is more complicated than you might think. AutoDesk currently offers a free Beta version of 123D Catch which takes a group of photos and returns a 3D version of what's in the photos, but with a major limitation. The surfaces need to have a random pattern/texture. In general it doesn't work with boats. http://www.123dapp.com/catch Microsoft has PhotoSynth which is similar, but PhotoSynth does not output the geometry in a usable form.

Then there's photogrammetry software and PhotoModeler is the most popular. A copy of PhotoModeler is $1145 and then you will need to spend some time learning how to use it.